The present invention relates to managing the flow of information among elements of a business enterprise, and in particular to a computer user interface to facilitate the inflow of information to a user from elements of the enterprise, and vice-versa the outflow of information from the user to elements of the enterprise.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Enterprise software users have difficulty organizing the elements of their information work such as database records in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases, digital files, co-worker contact information, news stories from professional and amateur publishers, auto-generated updates from business processes, and short messages (updates or tweets) from co-workers and others in a business network, analytic displays of work-related data, and so on. Users may need to use ERP applications to access formal database records, email systems or messaging clients for interpersonal communication, websites or aggregation services for 3rd party news and opinions, and specialized collaboration products for file sharing and decision-making. The need to monitor and work with information assets in such a variety of formats, tools, and places makes it difficult to organize and coordinate information work, especially when working collaboratively in groups.
These and other issues are addressed by embodiments of the present invention, individually and collectively.